( ISBIFORlL 



CUNEIFORM. 



Minuting toe rvnowneu name 01 inemicuaii- 



nu nuily quelled by Uw gtaeni* of Darius ; 



only to the nraeooe of tfce monarch, who 



In followed the pretend* to Babylon, and 



of Darius was to restore the national worship which Gumata hail nog 

 leaked. While thus occupied, a revolt broke out in Simian*, and almost 

 aimulUnvoiuly another in Babylon under the conduct of a man whom 

 lUriua calk a pretender, aaauming the renowned name of Ncbuchad 

 neuar. The first revolt 

 that of Babylonia yielded 

 :i:t. r two auoceavful battle* 



lew him there. While still in Babylon nine provinces took the 

 opportunity of rising, from Assyria in the north to Egypt in the south, 

 ana even his own native Penis wa* one of the rebellious districts. 

 The Utter wa* easily quelled ; but aix battle* were fought with very 

 partial aucoea* against the insurgent Medes and Assyrians, who were 

 not subdued until Darius himself took the field : he fought a battle 

 with the Median thief, who was named Phraorto*, at a place called 

 QundruH, and put him to flight. Phraortes escaped to Rhagea, where 

 he was captured, and brought to Darius, who cruelly tortured him, 

 and subsequently put him to death at Eobatana. 



The next insurrection waa in Sagartia, but the leader of the revolt, 

 who assumed, like Phraortes, to be of the royal race of Media, was 

 Boon defeated, and put to death, after torture, at Arbela, Another 

 revolt followed in Parthia, which was subdued by Hystaspea, the 

 father and lieutenant of Darius, after two engagements, in the second 

 of which he waa aided by troops which his son supplied. A province 

 of Bactria then raised the standard of rebellion, but this was quelled 

 in one battle by Dadarses the satrap of Bactria. And now another 

 false Smerdis arose in Persis, who gave Darius much more trouble ; he 

 made a diversion by despatching troops to Arachosia, who excited that 

 province to revolt also. Five battles were fought, two in Persis, and 

 three in Arachosia, in none of which Darius was present, although he 

 appears to have been in that part of the empire. Finally the rebellion 

 wa* quelled, and the chiefs were captured and put to death. In the 

 mean time Babylon revolted again under an Armenian, who, like the 

 former insurgent, took the name of Nebuchadnezzar, but he was 

 defeated by the general of Darius, and crucified in Babylon.* 



Here the historical part of the inscription ends, and the monument 

 wa* probably erected during the period of tranquillity which ensued ; 

 but it appears from a short column subsequently added, which is very 

 much damaged, that another revolt broke out in Susiana, which was 

 quelled by Oobryas, the general of Darius; and again another among 

 the Scythians on the Tigris. 



The closing column of the inscription is filled with the names of the 

 defeated rebels, whom Darius here calls kings, with asseverations of 

 the truth of the record, a considerable amount of self-glorification, 

 and blessings and curses invoked on the preservers and destroyers of 

 the monument respectively!; the whole concludes with the names of 

 the six men who assisted in the death of the Magion, the false 

 Smerdis, and a recommendation of their descendants to the monarch's 



We have much less to say of the second branch of the subject ; 

 historically, nothing ; as the contents of the inscriptions are merely 

 translations of those above described. The first treatise upon these 

 inscriptions specially, by Westergoard, was published in the ' Trans- 

 actions of the Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen,' in 1845. This 

 was a very careful analysis of all that hod been then published, and 

 considering the limited materials at hi* disposal, it is a monument of 

 the learned Dane's sagacity. The memoir of Norris, published in the 

 Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, in 1853, hod the advantage of a 

 greatly increased quantity of material, Sir Henry Rawlinson having 

 placed at the writer's disposal the paper casts of the great inscription 

 of Behistun, which enabled him to show the value of many characters 

 not ascertained previously : out of 105 characters he found the approxi- 

 mate sound of 84, and in most of these he agrees with Westergaard. 

 In regard to the language, Norris's opinion was, that it belongs to the 

 Turanian division ; and he was inclined to look upon it as more like the 

 Ugrian branch than any other, although agreeing here and there in its 

 vocables rather with Mongol or Turk. The Turanian division of 

 language* include* a very large number of tongues, with for greater 

 difference* than those found in the Indo-Uennanic or Semitic families 

 in their largest extent, and any features in which all agree are rather 

 negative than positive. Norris suggests, in p. 52, that the cuneiform 

 system was invented by a Scythic nation, which seems to be con- 

 firmed by the discovery of the pnc-Semitic inscriptions of Nineveh, 

 and by the investigations of Oppert. He also gives some reasons, in 

 p. 205, for a supposition that the natives of the province of Persis 

 were Scyth* ; possibly they sj>oke the language of the inscriptions of 

 the second kind, which may have been adopted by Cyrus in preference 

 to the dialect* of the other barbarous tribes of the empire, because it 

 was that of hi* native province. Norris suggested that the dialect was 

 that of Susiana, but nearly all the inscriptions found in Susa are in 

 different though probably allied language. 



The value of this part of the investigation is merely philological ; 

 unles* it may by-and-bye afford a clue to the other languages which we 



It It curium that, after mentioning a battle, the Babylonian version always 

 rteorda the number* of the killed and taken ; a particular neglected by the leu 

 mathematical Medea and Peralana. The love of calculation waa certainly active 

 in the Babylonian*, and wu Bore beneficially directed in their astronomical 

 libonra. 



find written in cuneiform character*, and it may even aid in decipher- 

 ing the pro-Semitic Turanian tablet*, which reach to 2000 B.C. 



\V. now come to the Assyrian or Babylonian inscriptions, a bran, h "f 

 tip' i:i.|uiiy .(nit,- iinn.'ticed when the subject was first studied, l.ut 

 which now, from the groat number of relic* found, and their far ni..n- 

 ..in-irnt. date, extending to a period when all profane history is silent, 

 ha* arrived at dimensions that have thrown all the rest into the shade. 

 The brilliant result* of the researches in and about Nineveh have been 

 already mentioned, and we have apoken of the very Urge number* of 

 earthen block* and slabs brought home, the |.rin.-ipal vehicle for tin- 

 literary labours of the Assyrians, nothing having been found in any 

 way resembling parchment or paper. There is no doubt, however, that 

 something of the sort existed ; perhaps leather skins ; we find in 

 several bas-reliefs now in the British Museum, which represent the 

 enumeration of things required to be numbered, such as the cattle 

 passing through the gate of a city, or the more favourite occupation of 

 counting a heap of heads cut off from the king's enemies, 1 

 pictured with writing materials in their hands, one of them having 

 a little slab with a pointed tool digging into its surface, ami tin 

 other usually provided with a flexible roll, the end hanging loosely 

 il.m -ii, up. .11 which he is obviously writing with ink no doubt checking 

 his companion. The contemporary records of the Bible show the same 

 usage. Isaiah, viii. 1, mentions a roll for writing; andinxxxiv. 4, 

 the rolling of a book is alluded to. Of the etymology of these words, 

 from a verb signifying to roU, there i* no doubt; about the ink of 

 Jeremiah (xxxvi. 18), and the inkhorn of Kzekiel (ix. 2), there is less 

 certainty, although the usual acceptation of the words is probably the 

 right one. 



The decipherment of the third class of cuneiform inscriptions is due 

 mainly to the sagacity of Sir Henry Rawlinson, though much ha* been 

 done by Dr. Hindu and Mons. Oppert. Sir Henry was favourably 

 placed at Bagdad for making himself acquainted with the haMripttaM 

 found by Layard, which passed through his hands on tin ir 

 England ; he hod a critical knowledge of the Arabic language, and he 

 was not unacquainted with the other Semitic tongues. As soon a* he 

 saw the value of the new discoveries which Layard and Botta were 

 copiously bringing to light, he quitted the study of the first branches 

 of the investigation, now almost exhausted, and plunged eagerly into 

 the new mine. In spite of all the difficulties attending the clumsy and 

 enigmatical Assyrian mode of writing, which can hardly be called an 

 alphabet, he made rapid way, aided by the mil nmch- 



damaged version of the Behistun inscription in the Babylonian lan- 

 guage and character, which were sufficiently like the Assyrian to 

 enable a philologer to make his first steps with confidence, int.. tin' 

 details of the decipherment this is not the place to enter. Colonel 

 Rawliuson's memoir, containing his analysis of a considerable portion 

 of the great Babylonian inscription, was printed in 1 N">1 l.v the I;v:il 

 Asiatic Society. This still awaits completion; but enough is given 

 there to enable a man with a good knowledge of Semitic languages, 

 Hebrew especially, to read many passages in any historical monument. 

 It has already in this country enabled Mr. Fox Talbot to translate 

 nearly the whole of the annals of Tiglath Pileger I., and son,,, p.ntions 

 of the hieratic slab of Nebuchadnezzar which was presented to tl,.- 

 East India Company in the beginning of this century. The frequent 

 admixture of the forms and words of the ancient race who preceded 

 the Assyrians in the lands watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, the 

 probable inventors of this mode of writing, concur with the clumsy 

 adaptation of the alphabet to puzzle the nnwt lr.mir.1 and energetic 

 investigator in many places. The number of vocabularies found in tl,,- 

 ruins of palaces, upon which the ancient Turanian words are explained 

 in ordinary Assyrian, shows that the difficulty was felt twentv 

 twenty-seven centuries ago, when the language was vernacular : we 

 may expect to find it greater now. The difficulties ore gradually 

 diminishing, but much remains to be done ; and the very fragni. 

 condition of the vocabularies found will perhaps render a complete 

 knowledge of Assyrian impossible. But we do not despair ; the first 

 part of the ' Corpus Inscriptionum,' compiled by Sir Henry Kawlinson, 

 and printed at the cost of government, is already completed, 

 prising 70 large sheet* of monuments, chiefly historical, beginning 

 with the stamped bricks of the ancient Turanian monarchs of twenty 

 centuries before the Christian era, and proceeding downwards t<> tl.'. 

 annals of the successors of Nebuchadnezzar. A second part 

 preparation, which will contain vocabularies, mathematical 

 astronomical observations and calendars, mythological tablets, 1 1 

 dynasties, descriptions of countries, rivers, and mountains, cl.i 

 linU of animals, and a great variety of miscellaneous matter. \Vheu 

 the united efforts of some dozen patient and energetic learned men 

 shall be brought to bear upon this mass of material, we may ho]>c that 

 every thing will be discovered which is not really impcwuil.lr. 



A good many Assyrian inscriptions have been found in the hiur.it ic 

 character, which diverges from the ordinary form much in the same 

 way that the various monkish forms called Gothic, Old English, Ac., 

 diller from the Roman type. These would have formed a more .- 

 difficulty but for the discovery of a fragment, now in the 1 

 Museum, which was very accurately engraved and published by Ker 

 Porter. This proved to be, so far as it went, a copy in cursh 

 rocter of the great inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, engraved in the 

 complex hieratic character. Three of the inscriptions in the vdunM 



